… a probabilistic theory of choice is just as contrary to the freedom of the will as a fully deterministic one. The argument here is extremely simple. Imagine that my action is determined by the roll of a six-sided die; if it comes up six, I raise my arm…

… I observe that I choose freely, at least sometimes; and if you introspect, you will see it too. There is no reason to assume that these observations are illusory… argument against the validity of introspection might be applied, ipso facto, to sight, hearing, touch, taste…

… I shall begin with the assumption of determinism, and show that it leads to the self-contradictory position of abject skepticism. Now it is a fact that people disagree on many questions; this leads us to wonder if on any given issue we are correct. How is the determinist to come to grips with this?…

… normal person is free to use or not use alcohol; but certain people are not free to not use it. The choice is “too hard” for them to make…

Risposta…

… my objection to this is basically that it just contradicts experience. Imagine that there were a button in front of you, the pressing of which would instantly exterminate all human life. You would not (I hope) want to press this button. But can you really say that you do not feel just as free to do so as you would to dial a phone number? Suppose someone pointed a gun at you and told you to push the button. Would you not be free to refrain? But if you are free in these extreme cases, how could you be unfree to refrain from drinking alcohol…

… different groups behave consistently differently. There is nothing amazing about this. The typical criminal makes a long series of brutal choices over his life; there is a systematic pattern to his choices. Does this show that each of his actions was not a choice?…

… Another objection to the doctrine of free will is that it renders a persons choices inexplicable. But there is really no paradox here, anyway. Of course it is possible to “explain” a choice, in the sense of describing the actor’s motives, goals, impulses, and so on. But we must remember that these were simply the factors that the agent chose to go along with; we are explaining which factors out of the cosmos of possibilities that the actor drew upon when making his choice…

… The other part of the evidence comes from participants’ reports on when they first became aware of their decisions…

Sequenza tipica di quel che accade…

… the typical sequence of events is as follows: first, there is the brain activity the scientists focus on, then the participants become aware of decisions (or intentions or urges) to act, and then they act, flexing a wrist or pushing a button, for example…

Conclusioni tipiche…

… 1. In various experiments, participants decide unconsciously. 2. Only consciously made decisions can be freely made…

… the brain activity that experimenters are measuring several hundred milliseconds or several seconds in advance of the action gives rise to additional brain activity that is a conscious decision, and that conscious decision plays a part in producing the action – the flexing, clicking, or pressing. There is no good reason to believe that the early brain activity (measured in seconds with fMRI and in milliseconds in the other studies) is correlated with a decision that is made – unconsciously – at that time…

… According to a modest conception of free will, as long as you’re able to make rational, informed, decisions when you’re not being subjected to undue force and also are capable of acting on the basis of some of those decisions, you have free will…

… According to a more ambitious view, something crucial must be added to these abilities: If you have free will, then alternative decisions are open to you in a way requiring that the natural laws that govern your brain activity sometimes give you at most a probability of deciding one way and a probability of deciding another way…

… In one experiment, the participants were women who wanted to do a breast self-examination during the next month. The women were divided into two groups. There was only one difference in what they were instructed to do. One group was asked to decide during the experiment on a place and time to do the examination the next month, and the other group wasn’t. The first group wrote down what they decided before the experiment ended and turned the note in. Obviously, they were conscious of what they were writing down. They had conscious implementation intentions…. The results were impressive. All of the women given the implementation intention instruction did complete a breast exam the next month, and all but one of them did it at basically the time and place they decided on in advance. But only 53 percent of the women from the other group performed a breast exam the following month…

… In another experiment, participants were informed of the benefits of vigorous exercise. Again, there were two groups. One group was asked to decide during the experiment on a place and time for twenty minutes of exercise the next week, and the other group wasn’t given this instruction. The vast majority – 91 percent – of those in the implementation intention group exercised the following week, compared to only 39 percent of the other group…

… In a third experiment, the participants were recovering drug addicts who would be looking for jobs soon. All of them were supposed to write resumes by the end of the day. One group was asked in the morning to decide on a place and time later that day to carry out that task. The other group was asked to decide on a place and time to eat lunch. None of the people in the second group wrote a resume by the end of the day, but 80 percent of the first group did…